


Loving Him Is Red

by abstractthinking



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Lots of Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts, pretty much just steve and bucky in this fic others are only mentioned, told from Steve's perspective, very gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 22:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractthinking/pseuds/abstractthinking
Summary: "Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes love each other as they always have and it feels so right, just as it feels right that the sun rises and sets every day and the moon rotates the Earth, it is certain and precise and enthralling.  They’ve been together since the beginning- once separated, they always make their way back to each other in the end.Til the end of the line."Or: the colorful love story of Steve and Bucky, where they lose each other and find each other again and again.





	Loving Him Is Red

**Author's Note:**

> Losing him was blue. Missing him was gray. Finding him was white. 
> 
> Loving him is red.

 

_Losing him was blue._

 

The guns felt heavy in stiff, cold hands. Deep in the icy mountains, a train screamed through the snow and wind, driving on and on until it would ache to a stop at its destination. Except it would never arrive.

 

Two men landed lightly on top of the fateful train. They looked at each other, two shades of blue meeting. One nod, and the strike was in motion. They moved in synchronization, almost like a dance; rehearsed to every step. One would assume that they had practiced this before, but the truth was this: they knew each other so well they might as well share one being.

 

The attack unto the Nazi train was underway. The two men, one a symbol for the American hope and dreams and the other his faithful sidekick, moved quietly through the inside of the train. They took out whoever was in their way. The American-clad man took out a German soldier the other had not seen, ultimately saving his life; a hundred words passed between the two men in a mere glance. _Thank you. I’m okay. We’re okay._

 

The shorter one, the one with darker hair, gave a small nod. The other, the big blonde, gave one back.

 

They continued their mission.

 

It would have been so simple. So easy; it was, effectively, a run-of-the-mill job. One mistake, that was all that Steve had made. One mistake, and he lost his entire world. He had overlooked one of the German soldiers, the one that had the superpowered weapon, and he blasted through the side of the train like it was paper. The wind screamed in their ears. He dropped his shield when he was thrown into the wall. Steve heard his other half pick it up for him, taking the burden off his hands for only a moment, and shoot viciously in order to save Steve’s life. But the other was too powerful; another blast, and Bucky was gone in a blink of an eye.

 

Steve- who had only seen white snow and blue eyes and dark hair at this point- saw red fill his vision in a hopeless rage. With barely a second thought, he took out the German soldier like it was merely an inconvenience. Steve flew to the open mouth of the train, and saw the love of his life hanging meekly from a railing, thousands and thousands of feet dangling beneath him. His rage felt like it had been dunked in ice, as fear took over every atom of his being. He could barely breathe, barely think except for _save Bucky, save Bucky, save Bucky._ Without a thought for his own fate, Steve climbed onto the hanging lip of the metal siding and reached out for Bucky’s hand.

 

Bucky looked the most frightened he had ever been in his entire life. That image was forever seared onto Steve’s heart. _Never, ever, will I let him look at me like that again._ Bucky reached out for Steve’s hand, and barely grasped onto it, like the fate of his life was teasing them. Steve yelled Bucky’s name before he even thought of his, his body reacted with such fierceness that his brain couldn’t keep up.

 

“Grab my hand!”

 

His words were like whispers over the screaming of the wind and the train. Bucky looked at him, and once again, a hundred words passed between the two men without ever speaking. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Thank you for everything. Goodbye. I love you._

 

_Til the end of the line._

 

The tips of Bucky’s fingertips brushed against Steve’s, almost like death was mocking them, and then the most horrible creaking sound that haunted Steve’s nightmares was heard. In a blink of an eye, Bucky vanished from the railing. In a blink of an eye, Steve’s entire world crumbled into millions of pieces.

 

He saw Bucky fall almost like he was out of his body, like he was an outsider standing away from the scene and merely watching. Unable to move. But he did feel the gut-wrenching scream that came out of his chest. Bucky was falling, falling, and then gone.

 

Steve couldn’t breathe. He didn’t _understand_ . Bucky was _right here_ , he had _touched_ him, where had he gone? Another scream wrenched from his throat, his sobs sounding like a wounded animal. His entire body felt numb and yet every nerve felt like it was on fire. Every atom was in agony. He felt like he was completely, irreversibly ripped into horrible little pieces. A void was torn through him that felt too empty and too heavy at the same time. He felt lost and he just _didn’t understand._ He felt crazy, out of his mind with grief and he screamed into the snow-filled trees that tore by him. Further and further away from his Bucky.

 

_He’s gone. Bucky’s gone. Bucky’s_ gone _. Oh God, why, why is Bucky gone?! Take me instead, I’ll do anything!_

 

Steve had absolutely no recollection of getting off the dangling piece of metal and crawling onto the floor inside the train. Frankly, he was surprised he hadn’t jumped off himself.

 

Because what was the point of life now if he didn’t have Bucky?

 

The other Commandos found Steve Rogers on that fateful day like this: inside the torn apart compartment on a howling train, a broken shell of a man was curled into a ball. forehead pressed against the ground, sobbing his eyes out and incoherently screaming one name.

 

* * *

 

 

_Missing him was gray._

 

The world was meek and miserable. The days felt gray and blended. How much time has passed since Bucky fell? Days? Weeks? Months? Steve didn’t know.

 

He went through missions like a brainwashed soldier: following commands, never questioning or second-guessing, just doing what he was told. He found that it was easier that way most of the time, as it got the jobs done faster. He felt almost nothing when taking out camps of German soldiers or wiping out Hydra.

 

He knew he spent too much time trying to get drunk. He found very quickly that because of the serum he wasn’t able to. He had smashed two tables and a window when he first discovered it. Steve had become quite isolated since Bucky’s death. He worked with the Commandos during missions, but in between, he would spend his time alone, mourning. He’d stay in his tent for hours at a time, or, more recently, sit in a burnt, hollowed-out bar that he had once been in with Bucky.

 

He remembered the night he introduced Peggy to Bucky in that bar. He was so excited to bring two people he cared about together, and they had all got on rather well. The lights were warm and the atmosphere felt almost like home, and when they had grabbed a table in the back corner, Bucky had sat next to him and discreetly grabbed his hand underneath the table and gave him his best smile and Steve had been _happy._

 

And now he was this. Not even Peggy could get him out of this dark hole of mourning Steve found himself in. The once-lively bar was now vacant and empty and gray- fitting to Steve’s new-found existence. He sat in that bar now and poured himself another drink. He heard heeled footsteps behind him and barely noticed. Just continued to drink in hopes of something he knows he’ll never get.

 

“Dr. Erskine said that,” he began to fill his drink again. “The serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles; it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means I can’t get drunk.” He gulped down his glass, knowing it wouldn’t affect him and hating the serum for it. He wanted to forget everything, at least for a little while, but he stayed as sober as if he had just had water instead of whiskey.

  
Steve blinked away the stinging in his eyes. It seemed like his eyes were always red these days. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything. He felt like a void ripped through him and left him to bleed when Bucky fell, and there’s nothing that will heal it. Not even the serum. Not Peggy. Nobody but a boy from Brooklyn with dark unruly hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that made his heart stutter. But he was gone. Bucky was gone, and Steve was alone.

 

Maybe that’s why crashing the Valkyrie, days later, had seemed ideal. The thought of dying from the impact of the crash didn’t frighten him or cause him emotional pain; in fact, he couldn’t help but think about what Bucky’s last thoughts were. Were they of him? Were they of home? Or were his brain just shut down, too afraid to even think of anything else?

 

Well, Steve’s last thoughts before the Valkyrie crashed into blinding snow was of Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes had taken Steve’s heart completely and fully, ever since the day he first laid eyes on him. Bucky had loved him when he was weak and scrawny, and when he was big and strong. Bucky always had the right words to say, the perfect glance or touch that comforted, the smile that made Steve’s knees weak (even after he got the serum). Bucky’s arms and Bucky’s heart was what Steve considered _home._

 

If this was the way to reach him again, then Steve would do it. Steve would do anything to see those baby blues and crooked smile again. So he closed his eyes and reached his hand out for Bucky- imaging that he had caught him and brought him home, where he belonged- as metal crashed around him.

 

The world went dark and Steve found peace.

 

Then, he awoke to sunlight and a ball game on the radio.

 

* * *

 

 

_Finding him was white._

 

Steve Rogers slept for seventy years, but the world spun on during that time without him. It grew and changed into something almost completely unrecognizable to someone from the 1940s. Steve shouldn’t be that surprised, really, from the technology he started to see in the war and some of Howard’s plans and creations, and he kind of isn’t. It was just jarring.

 

Most people thought it was from the sudden change to modern culture and society. But it was jarring for Steve because he had been prepared to die- _ready_ to die- but for some reason, the universe let him live. It was a twisted, cruel fate. He had always been the sickly one, the small one, and then he was the war hero, the martyr, destined to sacrifice himself in the name of his country. He wasn’t meant to survive.

 

But he had survived, and Bucky still hadn’t.

 

To the world, James Buchanan Barnes had gone “missing in action” almost seventy years ago. To Steve, it felt as though it’s been a few weeks at best. And the gaping void that Bucky left- the grief and madness and anger he had felt- it was all still there.

 

As he did in 1945, in 2014, Steve moved from day-to-day at an agonizing, heavy pace. He had become the mighty Captain America once again; but the problem was was that there was no one else left to see Steve Rogers anymore. He had faded into his stage and battlefield persona, and nobody knew him anymore. In a strange way, it was almost like Steve _had_ died. He certainly felt like it.

 

Everyone he had known was either dead, almost dead, or in Peggy’s case (bless her soul), had lost their mind. Steve had never felt so alone in his life; so he threw himself into what he did best: fight the bad guys that just kept coming. He worked for SHIELD, the organization that Howard and Peggy had created, and tried to do right by them. By Bucky.

 

And then, as always, it all came crashing down.

 

The highway was littered with smashed cars and people running. Natasha had tried to get people out of there, but the Winter Soldier was too fast, too strong, and too ruthless. Sam and Natasha both were running out of energy quickly, so Steve threw himself into the fire to try and protect them.

  
He hadn’t been this matched physically against an enemy for a long time now; not since the Red Skull, maybe. The Winter Soldier’s fighting skills must have been from highly trained groups, and he was merciless and quick. His moves were flashes of pain as Steve tried fighting him off, getting him away from his friends and the public and hoping to put an end to the danger this ghost was making. Steve blocked his hits and shots with his shield, but the man began to use it against him, trying to weaken him. Steve somersaulted backwards, and the Winter Soldier held his shield up from him. In a fit of anger, the captain sprinted forwards and dodged his own shield as the Winter Soldier threw it towards him. He narrowly missed as it embedded itself in a van.

  
The two supersoldiers began fighting again, skilled fists delivering bone-rattling blows, neither seeming to be giving in. The man put his metal hand over Steve’s throat and squeezed, his vision darkening around the edges, and he was thrown back over a car and onto the cement. Steve dodged deadly blows from both hands and knives, and finally acquired his shield again. The two fought a moment more before Steve threw the Winter Soldier over his shoulder with a grunt.

  
  
The man somersaulted to his feet, but his mask, that had covered half his face, fell onto the ground with a clack. The soldier held his back to Steve, before turning with dark eyes.

 

Steve felt all the air rush out of him. With unblinking eyes, he stood motionless as he stared into blues that he never thought he would see again. His stomach fell to his feet, his heart was loud in his ears. Pure shock twisted his insides into goop. He felt nauseous. _This isn’t real. Of course it isn’t. Bucky_ fell _, dammit, seventy years ago! He can’t be alive… no matter how much I need him to be._

 

Steve was filled with daring hope, and it felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t take his eyes off him, couldn’t even move, afraid he’d disappear in a blink of an eye. Bucky looked different- he had god awful hair and a looming metal arm and a blank stare ready to kill and then Steve suddenly felt terrified out of his mind. Because if he looked different, _this_ different, then this had to be Bucky- he wouldn’t make up a version of Bucky like this in his head. And if this really is him ( _oh God please_ ), then that means that Bucky, _his Bucky,_ just tried to kill him. Steve’s world turned blinding white with questions and desires, terror and love. The void Bucky ripped through so long ago ached like never before, and Steve both never wanted this moment to end and wanted to just forget it all.

 

Steve settled on choking out, “Bucky?” The sound of his name- even from his own mouth- almost sent Steve to his knees.

 

But what made Steve completely crumble into heartbroken pieces, become a shell of a man, was what his beloved ( _because yes, this has to be him, it has to be_ ) spit back to him.

 

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

* * *

 

 

_Loving him is red._

 

Bucky had saved Steve from the water that day- he knew that for a fact. There couldn’t be any other explanation for how Natasha had found him on the shore, alive and breathing. Which meant that Bucky hadn’t been completely brainwashed- there was still some of the man he loved in there, and he just needed to find it again. Steve held onto that hope, that tiny glimmer of fact, and searched every inch of the planet looking for Bucky. He had ran when Hydra and SHIELD went down for good, and now Steve had to find him and try to bring him home.

 

He and Sam had searched for months fruitlessly. Steve spent many sleepless chasing shadows, avoiding the sight of his own reflection in fear of seeing a ghost in himself. If it wasn’t for Sam, gentle caring Sam, Steve would’ve collapsed onto his knees long ago.

 

And then, as Steve’s luck would have it, everything once again came crashing down.

 

Hanging on by a mere thread, Steve was totally blindsided when Peggy died, and the Avengers were torn apart by the Sokovia Accords. And Rumlow, battered and overpowered, resting on his knees before him, muttering those words that made his heart stop, his throat close up. He felt like a powerless sixteen year old kid again, alone in a dusty house in the slums of Brooklyn, hanging onto life by a thread and suddenly feeling warm arms wrap around him, “ _Steve, Stevie, you gotta hold on, alright pal? You gotta hold on, for me, for your ‘ma, you just gotta_.”

 

“Your pal, your buddy, your _Bucky_.”

 

He had spit the words out almost in hatred and Steve went from ‘strong hero Captain America’ to a defenseless kid- one who was madly, over-the-heels in love with his best friend. He became useless and then the battle was done and then the dominoes went crashing on and on from there- Peggy, the Accords, the UN blowing up, Bucky. _Bucky_.

 

Steve is in Bucharest in an apartment that must be Bucky’s. It’s small with no personal values except for the notebook on top of the fridge. He tries to hide his shaking hands as he picks it up and flips through the pages, finding more pictures and mentions of him than he expected.

 

And then suddenly he hears the presence behind him, and he _knows_ that feeling, that presence, almost like it’s a part of his instincts and he’s almost afraid to turn around but he does it anyways, and the breath he is holding in his lungs is released and then he’s stuck. His legs feel heavy and he wants to reach out to him, to _his Bucky_ , but uses every fiber of his being to stay still. Bucky is looking at him defensively, watching every move Steve makes and he wants him to feel safe with him (he wants him to _be_ safe) and so he remains still. But he must ask the question that feels like fire in his throat.

 

“Do you know me?” His voice is gruff but his heart is aching.

 

Bucky seems to hesitate, and then answers, jaw clenched. “You’re Steve,” and Steve’s heart swells and he feels elated and relieved but he holds his breath because Bucky continues to speak, “I read about you in a museum.”

 

Steve feels like he’s choking but he forces himself to continue. Because even though Bucky has changed, he still knows those azure eyes and he still knows when they’re lying to him. “I know you're nervous. And you have plenty of reason to be. But you're lying.”

 

“I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.”

 

Even though there was a smidge of doubt, Steve never really believed he did, and now, looking at him, he doesn’t think he even could. Physically, yes, of course Bucky could, but emotionally? Steve can see the boy he used to be, even though a sliver, in those baby blue eyes- the crooked smile and warm arms and all.

 

“Well, the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive.”

 

“That’s smart. Good strategy.” And the way Bucky says it, like he’s just torn down and defeated, makes Steve’s heart ache painfully. Bucky knows he is dangerous, he doesn’t seem to trust himself and even worse he does not seem to care if he dies in the coming fight. Panic spreads through Steve’s body at an alarming rate and his grip on his shield tightens. He is ignoring Sam in his comm and only focusing on Bucky, his Bucky and yet not, and he is suddenly desperate to get him out of here.

 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” Steve almost pleads, like he’s begging him to walk away, to live, to save himself, and Bucky doesn’t seem to care. Steve wants so badly to touch him, hold him, and he’s stuck in this spot watching the love of his life (who doesn’t even know who he _is_ ) walk past him and say, in such a crushed and yet accepting voice, “It always ends in a fight.”

 

But Steve has to ask that burning, fiery question, desperately. “You pulled me from the river. Why?”

 

“I don’t know.” There they are again; those lying, sapphire eyes.

 

Steve stares at him and feels like he’s staring straight into Bucky’s soul- one that’s shredded apart and fragile and he almost whispers his response as if he’s afraid of hurting him further.

 

“Yes you do.”

 

They fight. The two boys from Brooklyn that loved and lost so, so much fought each other, and then side by side as their worlds as they knew it once again fell apart around them. They went to Siberia, fought Tony Stark, found safety in Wakanda- essentially destroying whatever past lives each of them had made.

 

But through it all, through the heartbreak and lies and destruction, they had each other. Steve Rogers dropped the shield for Bucky Barnes just as he picked it up for him over seventy years ago; to save him. Steve Rogers has had a lot of change in his life from the start of it to where he was now, but one thing had remained the same in his long, long life: he is in love with Bucky Barnes, and always would be. No matter who Bucky Barnes was or turned out to be.

 

    ~~~~

 

Six years and three months since Siberia, four years and nine months since the “Infinity War,” Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are lying in bed in their apartment in France. Rain patters lightly on their window and the smell of fresh coffee wafts in from their kitchen. Steve is holding Bucky in his arms, spooning him from behind, and has been half awake the last half an hour watching his lover peacefully sleep.

 

So much torment has gone on in Bucky’s head the last eighty years that they were lucky to get any part of Bucky back at all. He’s able to remember bits and pieces of his old life, and Steve helps him figure out the rest. Through extensive therapy, Bucky is able to start remembering that he doesn’t have to take orders to do anything anymore, that he can enjoy things, and ask for things he wants.

 

Nightmares are what Bucky struggles with the most, but Steve is there for every single step. And together, they make a life the both of them always wanted. Not exactly as they pictured, yes, but a life all the same. One without monsters or aliens, without the constant chase and destruction that it led to.

 

Bucky stirs in his sleep and Steve smiles, pressing soft kisses to his beloved’s shoulder and neck. Bucky sighed in content. It had been a long time since he felt so safe and unafraid. “Good morning.” Steve murmurs from behind him. Bucky took it all in: the softness of their bed, the rain he could hear on the roof and windows, the faint smell of coffee, and his lover’s arms wrapped around him like a blanket, protecting and comforting him. It felt like a hazy red, like love and warmth, a soft fire clouding his heavy mind.

 

A small smile reached his lips. “Good morning.”

 

“I love you.” Steve told him, as he did every morning without fail.

 

“I know. I love you too.” Bucky replied, as he did every morning. He kissed Steve’s hand, and interlaced it with his own.

 

The two of them became silent in introspection. It seemed so wild and strange to have the kind of life they have now, and both of them admit to being absolutely terrified of it crashing down around them again. They clutch onto it with hopeful but cautious happiness.

 

Both are broken men with dark and dismal pasts that still haunt them to this day. And they still have so much to work on, with themselves and with their relationship. Bucky will laugh and show affection and be very much himself but sometimes he will wake up screaming or violent or he will zone out with empty eyes looking so very far away. Steve is always there for when he returns to his normal self. Steve will sometimes find himself feeling lost or distant and will want to spend the day looking out the window in silence, and Bucky is always there beside him as a constant comfort.

 

They love each other as they always have and it feel so _right_ just as it feels right that the sun rises and sets every day and the moon rotates the Earth, it is certain and precise and enthralling.  They’ve been together since the beginning- once separated, they always make their way back to each other in the end.

 

Because they’re with each other until the end of the line- always.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please comment, kudos, subscribe, all the good stuff. Believe or not I started this fic almost two years ago. Decided to finish it last night. Life's crazy


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